Instructions to Josiah Martin concerning the government of North Carolina [Extracts]

George III, King of Great Britain, 1738-1820

February 06,
1771

Volume 08, Pages 513-515

[B. P. R. O. B. T. No. Carolina Vol. 24. P. 4.]

Instructions to our Trusty and Well-beloved Josiah Martin Esquire, our Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over our Province of North Carolina in America, given at our Court at St. James's James's the 6th day of Febry 1771 in the eleventh year of our Reign.

First, With these our Instructions you will receive our Commission under our Great Seal of Great Britain constituting you our Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over our Province of North Carolina in America, you are therefore to fit yourself with all convenient speed to repair to our said Province of North Carolina and being there arrived, you are to take upon you the execution of the Place and Trust We have reposed in you and forthwith to call together the following Persons by name, whom We do hereby appoint to be members of our Council for that our Province, viz, George Mercer Esqre our Lieutenant Governor of our Province of North Carolina, or our Lieut: Governor of our said Province of North Carolina for the time being, James Hasell, John Rutherford Lewis De Rosset, John Sampson, Alexander McCulloch, William Dry, Robert Palmer, Samuel Strudwick, Martin Howard and Samuel Cornell Esquires.

2. You are with all due and usual solemnity to cause our said Commission, constituting you our Captain General Governor in Chief as aforesaid to be read and published at the said meeting of our Council which being done you shall then take and also administer unto each of the members of our said Council the Oaths mentioned in an Act passed in the first year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the First, intituled “An Act for the further security of His Majesty's person and government and the succession of the Crown in the Heirs of the late Princess Sophia being Protestants and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales and his open and secret abettors,” and in an Act passed in the sixth year of our Reign intituled, “an Act for altering the Oath of adjuration and the assurance and for amending so much of an Act of the Seventh year of Her late Majesty Queen Anne intituled an

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Act for the improvement of the Union of the two Kingdoms as, after the time therein limited requires the delivery of certain Lists and Copies therein mentioned to persons indicted of High Treason or misprision of Treason,” as also make and subscribe and cause the members of our said Council to make and subscribe the Declaration mentioned in an Act of Parliament made in the twenty fifth year of the Reign of King Charles Second, intituled “An Act for preventing dangers which may happen from polish Recusants” and you and every of them are likewise to take an Oath for the due execution of your and their places of Trust as well as with regard to your and their equal and impartial Administration of Justice. And you are also to take the Oath required by an Act passed in the seventh year and the eighth year of the Reign of King William the Third, to be taken by Governors of Plantations to do their utmost, that the Acts of Parliament relating to the Plantations be observed.

3. You shall administer or cause to be administered the Oaths appointed in the aforesaid Acts intituled “An Act for the further security of his Majesty's Person and government and the Succession of the Crown in the Heirs of the late Princess Sophia being Protestants and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales and his open and secret abettors” and An Act for altering the Oath of Adjuration and the Assurance and for amending so much of An Act of the seventh year of her late Majesty Queen Anne, intituled an Act for the improvement of the Union of the two Kingdoms, as after the time therein limited requires the delivery of certain Lists and Copies therein mentioned to persons indicted of High Treason or the misprision of Treason” to the members and officers of our Council and Assembly and to all Judges, Justices and other persons that hold any Office or Place of Trust or Profit in our said Province, whether by virtue of any Patent under our Great Seal of Great Britain or the Publick Seal of Great Britain or the Publick Seal of our said Province of North Carolina or otherwise and you shall also cause them to make and subscribe the aforesaid Declaration, without the doing of all which you are not to admit any person whatsoever into any Publick Office, nor suffer those that have been admitted formerly to combine therein.

[The other instructions are identical with those given to Governor Tryon (see Vol. VII, p. 137) save that Sections 30, 54, 55, 77, 78, and 111 of Tryon's are omitted from Martin's, and that in Martin's

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are to be found two new Sections set forth below, viz: 14 and 19.—Editor.]

14. Whereas Laws have at several times been passed in many of our Colonies and Plantations in America, by which certain Parishes and districts have been impowered and authorized to send Representatives to the General Assemblies of the respective Colonies in which the said Parishes and Districts lie and sundry other regulations have been introduced by those Laws, relative to the said Assemblies. It is our further Will and Pleasure and we do hereby require and Command, that you do not upon any pretence whatsoever give your Assent to any Law or Laws to be passed in Our Province under your Government by which the members of the Assembly shall be enlarged or diminished, the Duration of it ascertained the Qualification of the Electors or the elected fixed or altered or by which any Regulations shall be established with respect thereto to [be] inconsistent with our Instructions to you Our Governor, as prejudicial to that Right or Authority which you derive from us in virtue of Our Royal Commission and Instructions.

19. Whereas a practice hath of late years prevailed in several of our Colonies and plantations in America of passing laws for raising money by instituting public lotteries and whereas it hath been represented to us that such practice doth tend to disengage those who become adventurers therein from that spirit of industry and attention to their proper callings and occupations on which the public welfare so greatly depends and whereas it further appears that the practice of allowing lotteries by Acts of Legislature hath been also extended to the enabling private persons to set up such lotteries by means whereof great frauds and abuses have been committed, It is therefore our will and pleasure that you do not give your will and assent to any act or acts for raising money by the institution of any public or private lotteries whatsoever until you shall have first transmitted to us by one of our principal Secretaries of State a draught or draughts of such act or acts and shall have received our directions therein.